Top of the Pops

Looks like TOTP repeats is possibly going back to 1 episode a week format.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n7g4

Not necessarily - the rest of the evening appears to form a Beatles/John Lennon theme night so I don't think we can base subsequent weeks' scheduling on that. I still think they plan to show 1990 and 1991 over the next 15 months, culminating in Christmas 1991 at Christmas 2021, so on that basis there would inevitably need to be only one edition some weeks.

Yes, you're right, I think that's what confused me!

You can see the "debris" of the exploding Channel 4 logo that opened the various 1987-88 title sequences at the very start of that video as well.

I notice they're showing the Kylie episode again tomorrow, just over 2 months since it was last shown in July, after previously not being shown since its original broadcast in 1998!

There's plenty of other episodes which they could show instead, like some of the other BBC Choice episodes which haven't been repeated since their original transmission, or the many TOTP2 specials that have been shown over the years.

I think the only other episode from the BBC Choice series which has been shown on BBC Four is the Pet Shop Boys episode.

That's because there's an Australian theme to tomorrow's line-up.

I'd like to see them repeat some of the original TOTP2s- from the first few Johnnie Walker series where they included some performances from that week's TOTP as well as archive ones. I don't think they've ever been shown since original broadcast, unlike the Steve Wright episodes, which have had plenty of repeats on various channels down the years.

Always found it interesting that the new logo first appeared on TOTP2 as well several months before it appeared on the main show. IIRC though TOTP2 did change the font on its captions to match the main show when they relaunched in Feb 95. In fact the first 95 revamp edition could have been something to show as part of an Aussie theme night seeing as Kylie hosted it.

Unlike the main show, TOTP2 was one of those shows that just quietly ended making new episodes without anyone noticing - after the end of TOTP1 the brand was usually reserved for one-off specials rather than a full series, though there was a series in mid-2012 just before the name was tarnished forever. The last new episode seems to have been the 2017 Christmas special, which they used to remake each year varying the songs/performances each time and always ending with Bing’s White Christmas.

Glad we’re getting some 1990s episodes soon, will be fascinating to see the Year Zero revamp and how it affects the show with those daft performances of rave songs with samples sung live. In a few years we’ll get the first episode I remember watching at the time (the first one of January 1994) and transition from songs my parents remember into ones I remember instead!

There was a series of TOTP2 in 2006/7 too, after the main show had ended, which had a fair few new performances on it, mostly made for the international versions which were still in production at the time.

I keep reading people on various TOTP discussion boards insisting BBC4 should stop at the 1991 revamp because in their opinion that's when the show "ended", music got "rubbish" and they've decided people won't be interested in watching the repeats any more from that point. Speak for yourself, I'm very interested in seeing the 90s episodes, even if the "year zero" episodes will be a hard watch, plus we get a few years of a rejuvanated TOTP in 1994-97 once we come out the other side of it. Part of the thing with music is so many people think their opinions on it are an authority, and when they think music became "rubbish" and nobody else will be interested is the one true opinion.

They did make a video for this song eventually - think it depicted the song rising up the charts.

This one:



As I said before, I've always wondred if The Chart Show was some sort of inspiration for the "Top 5 singles" that appears on the TV. It even uses the same font The Chart Show used in the 1991-96 era.

Sounds like the same generation who’d have got into the BBC4 repeats when they started in 1976 nine years ago, enjoying the music of their childhood and teenage years and into their twenties by the 1980s. By the time of the revamp they weren’t the young punk lovers or New Romantics of a decade or so prior, indeed some would even be the parents of the next generation of kids muttering about rave and grunge tracks in the same way their parents turned their noses up at The Jam and Boy George.

I can relate in a way in that my musical knowledge has slowly fallen as the last decade went on, knowing and liking almost everything a few years ago to only knowing one song in the entire top ninety-two of this week’s chart and that’s only because it’s a remix of an 80’s Tina Turner song. But I appreciate that whatever’s around now is enjoyed by a different generation to me, and it’s a shame the show will end while I was still 17 years old so I don’t get to watch half of my own personal musical journey unfold.

Some parts of that I'm afraid I have to agree with, though I expect it's largely an age thing. For me, TOTP as I had always known it did come to end in 1991, and I find the music scene from around 1991/92 onwards much less interesting. The 1994-97 era, though marginally better than 1991-94, still doesn't do much for me either.

I've always been keen for the repeats to get at least as far as October 1991, and I'm perfectly happy for them to continue beyond that point. I can't see why anyone should begrudge that - they can just simply not watch if they're not interested - and I will probably continue to watch for as long as they go on (although I had largely given up first time around by 2004). It's just that I wouldn't be crestfallen if they didn't go beyond 1991.

(And I know exactly what you mean about those posters on a certain other forum who regard their own personal opinion as the correct, definitive one, which is why I have to skip past whole chunks of the TOTP threads over there).